glossary
by incatibelle
Summary: Cooking terms for the traumatized chef wizard.
1. to marinate

It starts with macarons.

It's a Candlenights tradition in Taako's family, and his aunt finally decides to show him how to make them. His first attempts are cracked and too big, hard to the bite, a cookie that only counts as such if one were being extremely generous. Taako remembers being frustrated, but his aunt had been so kind about it anyways, even if they were more like inedible rocks than delicious treats. Macarons are hard, she assures him, it takes even a skilled chef years to get it right.

Chef, Taako decides, is the coolest profession in the world. He wants to be that.

The fourth try, he finally gets it right, and he surprises her with his creation. Her eyes light up at the first bite - they're the perfect kind of macaron, crisp on the outside and cakey on the inside. She raves about his talent for days afterwards.

It's the first time he learns that cooking makes people happy, and it's something he never really forgets either.

* * *

It continues with beef stew.

It's a crowded caravan, the kind that doesn't really enjoy dead weight, but Taako knows he can't go back to nights in the wilderness. He begs, promises he'll do anything as long as he gets to keep traveling, and the idea comes to him in such a flash that his final plea comes out as an ultimatum - if he can impress everyone with the dinner he makes, he can stay on the caravan.

They like his resolve.

It's the first time he's ever really cooked for a bunch of people. He helps with cooking, but the cooks never let him do anything serious, just chopping vegetables and keeping an eye on soup stock. He'd secretly resented it, but he was a young kid, and everyone had to work their way up the ranks somehow.

This left the problem of what to cook though. Taako goes through the pantries, sees the shit options he has at his disposal, and wrangles up the biggest pot he can find.

Simple was best, and if you couldn't figure out what to do, throwing all that shit in a pot for a stew would work just as nicely.

It's the best meal the caravan has had in weeks, warm and filling with plenty of leftovers to spare. Someone says he should really do something with his talents, and Taako starts to think about what that could mean.

* * *

It strengthens with transmutation magic.

Using magic with cooking hadn't really occurred to Taako - in a way, it feels like cheating, and maybe more personally, it feels less satisfying to use just magic - but when one of the wizards he cooks for offers to teach him a couple tricks, Taako's curiosity gets the better of him.

The first spell is a huge fuckup, and everything he drinks tastes like key lime yogurt, of all fucking things, but with time and patience - two things Taako is bad at, he fully admits - he starts to learn how magic works.

And then he gets excited. First it's small things, like turning salt into sugar, but then it turns into bigger things, turning chicken into steak, turning vegetables into fully cooked meals. He does it to pass the time, and fucking around with magic is its own reward, but then the other cooks start watching and applauding, and it gathers its own crowd in time.

The recognition is wonderful, just as wonderful as the looks on their faces when they taste his food. Taako rides on that high long after dinnertime, staring at his hands.

Shit. Maybe he really can make something of this.

* * *

It kicks off with omelettes.

Omelettes are easy to make. His first cooking shows are rough - it's hard to get noticed at first - but after traveling a couple towns and putting on a couple shows, he starts getting an audience again. It's hard, being away from the caravans, but freeing in its own way too, never needing to stress about sharing a space with a bunch of strangers.

Everything else, though? Fuck that, he's not intimidating in the least.

But he gains a fan - and after spotting him at a couple shows, Taako decides to ask him for help. Sazed, the guy's name is, gushes about his prowess and showmanship, acts like he hangs the moon and all the stars. The attention is nice, and Sazed looks tough enough to handle crowd control and all that shit that isn't the spotlight.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

* * *

It weakens with elderberries.

Taako likes elderberries, they let off a wonderful aroma when cooked. He likes the way they add variety to dishes, but he's learned to be careful when he cooks them - it's easy to undercook them, and while they're perfectly safe when cooked, they can be a little on the ill-making side when they're not cooked through.

There's also the fact the berries can look like nightshade. The flowers are similar enough and so are the berries.

He scrawls a note in one of his cookbooks, reminding himself to just be more careful.

* * *

It ends with thirty garlic clove chicken.

Taako knows this recipe inside and out - it's simple enough. Chicken thighs, wine, a shitton of garlic cloves, onion, rosemary, oil. It's impossible to fuck it up - all you do is throw it in a pot and let it all cook down so the heat of the garlic remains without all the aroma.

He likes to dress it up with rice and an elderberry reduction - it makes the colors of the dish pop, makes it a little more savory.

He's been to Glamour Springs plenty of times. The locals love him, and anyone could smell the chicken.

He'd gotten so into talking with the audience he hadn't tasted the food - he had to keep the show going, it was a long cook.

He'd cooked it so many times before, could practically recite the recipe in his sleep.

And yet…

He doesn't forget the way the first person just stops after taking a bite. The way their smile drops off their face, the way they blink in confusion, and then start staring straight through him. Their breath hitches - and then Taako sees the elderberries and realizes.

He runs.

Sazed doesn't even question it.

Taako doesn't look back.

Two days later, they get far enough away. They stay at an inn, and Taako sleeps a sleep of supremely fucked up dreams.

And when he wakes up, Sazed is long gone, and all Taako is left with is the blood of forty people on his hands.

* * *

Hurley asks about the mongoose. Taako decides to be honest, and when Magnus and Merle laugh in response, he can't stop the rant he goes on. No one had questioned it then, and it's one of the things he thinks of as Hurley lies dying in Sloane's arms.

As the poison crawls up her arms, Taako wonders if this is how the people in Glamour Springs died too.

When they return to the base after nearly getting poisoned, Taako holes up in the kitchen and cooks thirty clove chicken. He doesn't eat it - he hasn't ate meat since that entire clusterfuck - but his mind and his hands go through the motions like clockwork.

Once it's done, he torches it to cinders.

* * *

He makes macarons again for Candlenights, so wrapped up in holiday spirit that he forgets why he doesn't do it anymore. Everyone raves - of course they do, his cooking is fucking excellent - and there's that familiar high again.

And then Angus asks about his cooking.

Taako makes the mistake of being honest again.

The kid cheers him up in his own way. The cookies are flavorless but the texture's spot on - better than he was on his first try. Something about that makes him think of his aunt, and he can't help smiling a little despite himself.

Taako doesn't offer to give him cooking lessons - he's not sure he's ready for that just yet - but later that night, Angus will just happen to find a fancy box of freshly made macarons in his dorm room.

* * *

After Refuge and the first discussion with Kravitz, Taako doesn't go to bed. He feels spent - explaining everything about the Bureau was exhausting on its own, not to mention the whole Glamour Springs fiasco and the dying repeatedly thing all while hoping to whatever deity was still cool with him that Kravitz didn't fucking kill him right then and there - but his mind won't rest either.

It hadn't been his fault.

Well, for the sake of technicality, anyways. He supposed he could get away with saying as much in front of Magnus and Merle, but the truth was...well, it was something he wasn't going to admit aloud.

He'd still fed them their deaths. No matter how he tried to rationalize it otherwise, it was still his fault too. If he hadn't been so selfish, maybe it never would have happened. Or maybe Sazed would have done it anyways, who fucking knew?

But knowing the truth was worth something. He sleeps a little easier that night, and the heavy weight on his shoulders feels a little less so in the morning. It's nowhere near good - quite frankly, that ship sailed years ago - but it's passable, he supposes.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd be open to the possibility of doing a cooking show again.


	2. to clarify

The nightmares start after Glamour Springs.

He doesn't remember sleeping when he and Sazed ran - but then, he doesn't remember a lot of any of that - but he remembers after, when he keeps his head down and his presence low. He avoids all those towns he'd grown to love, never stays in one place for too long.

It's like before. Taako had promised he'd never go back to the caravan life, but life, well, life had decided to fuck him over.

But, well, he supposes that isn't right. This was his fault, all because of those fucking elderberries.

All because he'd gotten over-confident.

He'd wanted too much, he'd flown too close to the sun, and this was life reminding him of his place in the world, some fucking nobody who had no one left to call family and no place to call home.

Taako keeps moving, sleeps when his body forces him to, goes over that recipe every day to the point that garlic makes his stomach churn with misery and meat makes him sick on sight.

In his nightmares, he watches Glamour Springs die over and over again. Sometimes Sazed is there, demanding to know what he'd done, and Taako never knows how to answer.

Had Sazed actually asked that? Taako doesn't know. He doesn't remember - he'd gone on lockdown when they'd ran, and hadn't come up for air until Sazed left him behind with nothing but the clothes on his back.

He wishes he could hate Sazed for it - but anyone with blood on their hands would have run.

* * *

Six years don't ease the guilt. He knows that recipe by heart now, can smell the garlic and chicken in his sleep.

Death hangs over him, dulling his senses. It's easier to pretend he doesn't care, it's easier to hold everyone at arm's length. If no one gets close, no one can hurt him, no one can leave him behind, no one will know he's a miserable fuckup who killed forty people -

Phandalin adds to the death toll. Taako tries to tell himself it doesn't matter.

He's wrong, but he knew that already.

He'd always been a shitty liar.

* * *

Goldcliff fucks with him.

Refuge, however? Refuge leaves him in a bad place.

How he'd managed to talk with Kravitz - much less go on a date with him - is beyond him, but he managed it somehow. The days since then blur into weeks and months.

Sazed with that arsenic bottle has been burned into his mind. The Chalice's words echo even now, making his stomach churn with disgust.

His cooking had been fine. That was a relief, as selfish as that was, but he can't get past Sazed. Sazed, who had traveled with him for years, Sazed, who he'd taught cooking to, Sazed, who he had trusted, as much as Taako could fucking trust anyone.

Where had it gone wrong? Taako puzzles it over and over and no matter how hard he thinks, there's no plausible answer. The stupid Chalice had said shit about jealousy, but jealousy didn't lead to murder. Boo fucking hoo, he hadn't wanted to partner up with him, Sazed could have just fucking left to start his own show.

No, instead the fucker had left him high and dry, letting him think he was a murderer. He almost wishes he could have taken up the Chalice's offer, just to Mage Hand him so hard that he'd turn into paste against the pavement. He deserved at least that much, the shitheel.

Taako stares at the ceiling, Stone of Farspeech in hand. He absently tosses it up and down, and every time it smacks against his palm, the gears start to turn.

A question forms. He starts to tune the Stone's frequency - and then, in a rare case of not being an emotional disaster, thinks better of it.

Not today. Not...not yet.

He's not ready to make that hurdle just yet.

Taako puts the Stone beside his pillow and closes his eyes. When sleep claims him, he's back in Glamour Springs again. Sazed stands before him, eyes wide in disbelief and horror, and again demands to know what just happened.

Taako finally has an answer: that it wasn't his fault.

The dream doesn't end - it keeps going as if he hadn't spoken - but there's a weight on Taako's shoulders that lessens just a little, a guilt that ebbs away from him just a bit.

It's something, he supposes.


End file.
